A Cycling Celebration, the party to be held this coming Saturday evening to honour Canada's cycling Olympians, is now completely sold out. We will be taking names on a waiting list (click on the button at the top of the page). There is also a slight chance to get in at the door (based on number of people who show up on the night), however, we are not promising anything. The final registered ticket holders will be contacted by e-mail today. If you believe that you purchased tickets, but have not received confirmation, please contact us at rjones@canadiancyclist.com.

Classifieds

You may have noticed that no new classifieds have been posted for about 10 days. This is due to both personal events we are dealing with (see Personal Notice, Daily News November 9th) and because we are rebuilding the Classifieds.

There have been numerous requests for the Classifieds section to broken into sections, such as Complete Bikes, Frames, Components, etc. This has been done and we are just finishing testing the completed system. The system will go online either later tonight or tomorrow morning. The older ads that were entered prior to this new system can be seen by clicking on the link on the new Classifieds page. Those old ads will remain online for 1 month.

If people who have ads currently running wish to have them in the new system, they will have to resubmit their ad.

We're back from Japan and Glenn (Rendall) is probably already on his way to France for Open de Nations and Zurich 6 day. The 2000 Tour de Okinawa is the longest (200km) road event in Japan. It featured a pro-am 200km race for men,a 50 km international women's event and citizens races of 50, 80, 120 and 200 km. There is also a 330 km lap of the island ridden as a two day rando. The Canadian team for this event consisted Glenn Rendall (Mr.Glenn), Jacob Erker, Svein Tuft and Cory Lange. Cybil Digustini and Anne Samplonius carried the colours in the women's race.

The men's race rolled out at 7:00 am under partly cloudy skies and 70 degree temperatures, with 22 teams of four riders. The expected casual start didn't materialize as a New Zealand rider attacked for the first sprint at 17 km and was quickly joined by a member of the Miyata/Subaru team. This duo gained a 55 sec advantage until 25 km when the Kiwi sat up to be replaced by Svein Tuft of Canada. He had been very aggressive to this point and I think the group was glad to be rid of him as the race settled down, with the remaining Canadians riding tempo as the race headed north along the coast. The off-shore winds were in their faces most of the time as the break drove to a maximum 5 min advantage. The guys in the group got a chance to recover prior to the first major climb when the entire Dutch team went to the front to try to reduce the margin.

At 70 km the gap remained 4 min at the first hill prime (taken by Svein) and was back to 5 min at the feed zone. The pace up the climb was fierce enough to badly string out the group, leaving 45 in front and a cramping Cory among many others scattered along the road. Normally this wouldn't be a big problem, as he was still in contact with the caravan, but with the caravan vehicles driven by local volunteers, huge gaps were left between cars.

The north end of the island was a 50 km loop which claimed the American Team and the remaining Mapie team riders (one stopped after 30 km). This section of the course was unrelenting climbs and wind. As the group headed south to the bottom of the climb Svein and Okazaki were down to a 2 min cushion. This was soon to disappear on the climb as Svein cracked and the front bunch led by Wong Kam Po of Hong Kong charged up the hill. At the feed Wong led a group of 14, containing Jacob, with Glenn in a small group at 2 min and a blown Svein at 5 min.

The remaining 35 kms were a study in power as Wong rode on the front of his group, countering every move and splitting the bunch with attacks of his own until finally getting loose with 30 km to go.He would finish 1:52 up on 7 riders (all Japanese). Jacob was providing much of the power to drive his group to the line.With splinters of the front group ahead of them, he was aware that the top ten was yet to be decided.

His foursome worked reasonably well with only one rider not contributing to the pace. This rider had the kick to grab the last spot on the money list while Jacob followed Dutch mountain biker Maarten Tjalling to the line to finish 12th. Svein recovered enough to overtake Glenn and finish 47th, with Glenn at 51st. They were in groups made up of riders from the citizens' races and were not given official times (which cut off at 15 min). Cory joined an international contingent on the bus.

The international womens race was an intimate affair of 20 starters. The relatively easy course of 50 km had it's only difficulty at 8 km, so a close finish was assured. The Canadians and Americans kept up a series of attacks to maintain a high tempo. The race was won by a member of the Japanese Olympic team outsprinting a Dutch rider with Anne leading the bunch sprint.

CODA Helps Bring Together World Experts To Build On Canada's Student Athlete Educational System

CALGARY, Nov. 16 /CNW/ - World-leading experts in sport and education will meet at a symposium in Calgary this week to help build a more successful future for Canada's high potential young athletes. The symposium, which runs November 16 - 17 (8:30am - 4:30pm) kicks off the Investors Group Sport Leadership 2000 conference this weekend.

CODA, (Calgary Olympic Development Association) in partnership with the National Sports Centre-Calgary, Heritage Canada and the Coaching Association of Canada, was instrumental in organizing the symposium. Local, national, and world experts will spend two days with athletes and educators at CODA's flagship Canada Olympic Park facility probing ways to ensure Canada's young high-performance athletes have the best possible system supporting their all-round growth.

The symposium features major presentations by Norwegian high performance director Thor Ole Rimejorde, who led his country's return to world dominance in the Nordic sports after dismal results in the 1980's, and Austrian Arno Staudacher, whose ski school has been instrumental in creating the world alpine powerhouse. Canadian presenters from Calgary and Quebec will speak on creating a systematic approach to student-athlete development.

"This meeting of the best sports minds from across Canada and abroad is another major step in CODA's commitment to developing excellence in winter sports from the grassroots to the world's best," says CODA president John Mills. "We want to promote the success of the sport school concept, based on the National Sport School here in Calgary, and encourage an increase in the number and quality of these types of schools."

Mills says that the National Sports School is the nation's innovative leader in combining education, coaching and training and CODA's goal is to improve on the concept nationally to boost more athletes to Olympic medal success. Now in its sixth year of operation, the National Sports School was founded in partnership between CODA and the Calgary Board of Education, and is attended by 144 student athletes.

Unique in scope, it allows Canada's future Olympians access to elite coaching while balancing an intense demanding training schedule with a top-notch education. CODA spent $6 million on winter sports grants, facility development and programming this year alone.

"Moving towards the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, we know Canada can build excellence for our athletes by learning from the world's best," says Al Murray, Vice President of Sport for CODA, the country's largest private funder of the national winter sports system. "In addition to high-school athletes, this symposium will take a hard look at what can be done for athletes pursuing a post-secondary education."

Ned Overend has donated his 1992 Championship race bike to be auctioned online as a mountain bike advocacy fundraiser for the New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA). The bike, immediately recognized by 1000's of fans, is completely vintage with '92 Suntour top-mount shifters/gruppo, his Cycle World Tension Disc wheel, Specialized suspension fork made by Rock Shox, Zoom stem and handlebars, Profile barends and 737 Shimano Pedals. This is a collector's item worthy of any bike shop or collector of classic mountain bike memorabilia!

This auction will be a benefit fundraiser for NEMBA to support it's bicycle advocacy programs throughout New England. The New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA) has 14 chapters and more than 2600 members throughout New England. Its mission is to promote responsible mountain biking and to protect and preserve New England trails and open spaces. The group also leads about 1000 recreational rides, holds mountain bike festivals, camping trips and has bicycle patrols in many parks.